Automotive

History of Automotive electronics and current trend

For more than 60 years, the automobile and electronics had a rather poor connection. But in the early 1960s, vehicles and electronics bonded to create what is today a $60+ billion global business.

Carmakers needed inexpensive components and systems that would operate reliably in the extremely harsh automotive environment. The electronics industry, on the other hand, used to producing high quality but expensive parts and systems for the military, was skeptical about its ability to produce the components the automotive industry wanted at the price they demanded. But both recognize that electronics can solve problem where mechanical or electromechanical solutions failed.

One of the first problems to solve was exhaust emissions controls. In the early 80s conventional catalytic exhaust wasn’t good enough and a closed loop system with engine control was the solution to meet the required standard of cleanliness.

This effort paved the ground to use of electronics in fuel economy and various other functions to improve performance and driving agreement. With the addition of intelligent power, intelligent sensors, and large electrical erasable PROMs (essentially memory technology), integrated systems flourished in the 1990s. Integrated power train/traction control, integrated braking, steering and suspension, multiplexing, communication and navigation, as well as onboard diagnostics represent the broad array of smart systems.

A microcontroller can be found at the heart of almost any automotive electronic control module or ECU in production today. Automotive systems such as ABS engine control, navigations, and vehicle dynamics all incorporate at least one microcontroller within their ECU to perform necessary control functions.

Because cars are subject to extreme environments, and can be driven at any location, even at high altitude, and the technology point is known to become sensitive to soft errors (90nm or less), the industry and in particular the AEC (Automotive Electronics Council) are including now Soft Error investigations in their design rules. Wait for the new revision of the AEC-Q100 spec to be issued in early 2007.

Useful Articles and documents

Risk assessment in Automotive electronics:

The table bellow lists the major current electronic functions in automotive. In red are shown the critical applications where thorough investigation for Soft Error impact should be performed.

Electronic Device Failure Impact on vehicle Sensitive to SE?
Sensors and Actuators
Pressure sensors, Linear and Angle Position Sensors, Flow Sensors, Temperature, eat and Humidity Sensors, Exhaust Gas Sensors, Speed and Acceleration Sensors, Engine Knock Sensors,Engine Torque Sensors, Actuators. Failure of these sensors and actuators can impact the vehicle, but not in a dramatic way since control systems can deal with the failure. Most of these sensors have little or no sensitivity to Soft Errors
Control Systems (microcontroller based)
Engine Control   Micro Controller based
Transmission Control
Cruise Control Failure can be dramatic
Braking Control
Traction Control  
Stability Control Failure can be dramatic
Suspension Control  
Steering Control
Lighting, wipers, Air Conditioning    
Display and Information Systems
Instrument Panel Display    
On and off board diagnostics
Safety, Convenience, Entertainment, and Other systems
Passenger safety and convenience Failure can be dramatic (airbag)  
Keyless entry and antitheft systems    
Entertainment products  
Emerging Technologies
Object Detection, Collision avoidance   Probably Sensitive to SE as amount of digital electronic needed is important
Adaptive Cruise Control Failure can be dramatic
Navigation Aids and Information System  

 

How can iRoC help ?

As independent specialist of the topic, we offer a wide variety of solutions to run the risk assessment at the early design phase and validation in the pre marketing phase of the product. We can also run crash investigation program to give companies the best input so they can design the best recall strategy if needed. Please check our solutions here and contact us for specific questions.